


An Irreverent Crusade

by EndoplasmicPanda



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Badass Princess Zelda, For the most part, Gen, Ghirahim is a hot mess, POV Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, she's willing to raze all of Hyrule if that's what it takes, so he's canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-09-28 11:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17182559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndoplasmicPanda/pseuds/EndoplasmicPanda
Summary: When Link disappears without a trace two months after the battle with Ganon, Zelda decides she will stop at nothing – not man, not beast, and certainly not Goddess – to bring him back.





	1. Chapter 1

Midnight visitors, much like the summer rains, were not unfamiliar to the people of Kakariko Village. But Impa was no fool; even in the hesitant peacetime of a post-Ganon world, there was cause to be on edge for all the smallest reasons.

She felt the presence before her guards alerted her – it was a twist of the wind between cloudbursts, a flash of insight between lightning.  

Her first instinct was to crane her neck, stare past the brim of her hat toward the north ridge where the Ta’loh Naeg shrine sat, quiet and looming over her village. She grew accustomed to the feeling of Link’s arrival through the ancient portals, the little flicker of blue light that told her a friend was near, but this feeling? This was not the same.

The doors to the temple swung open just as much from the storm as from Cado’s hasty entrance, and even though she expected it, the sight was still surprising.

“Lady Impa, there’s a stranger on the eastern border. They’re approaching on horseback as we speak.”

“Let them come,” Impa said, easing herself off her seat with careful consideration to the aches in her joints.

“My lady?” Cado asked. Water ran down his face in thick streaks. “Please, you needn’t go outside, not in this weather—”

“Nonsense.” Impa stepped between the gap in Cado’s leg and the frame of the door. Icy-wet wind whipped at her face, threatened to steal away her hat and toss it into Lantern Lake, and she held it to her head as firmly as she could.

The shadowy figure approached.

They rode a gleaming white horse, now grey in the mute moonlight. Mud caked the beast’s belly like a second coloring, and it galloped through the waterlogged paths of Kakariko Village like it knew the terrain, like this was all a familiar sight.

“That horse,” Cado breathed from beside her.

Impa nodded. “I recognize it, too.”

The horse slid to a stop over the slick ground in front of Impa’s temple, rearing up onto its hind legs when its rider pulled the reins tight. Water slashed through the air and the row of lit torches against the fence line disappeared into the shadows of night, extinguished.

Impa forced past Cado, shrugging his hands away when he reached forward to grip her shoulder. “Mind yourself,” she grunted, and Cado shrank back.

Lightning flashed across the sky, framing the peak of Mount Lanayru in the mangled glow of storm clouds. Vaguely, Impa saw the twinkle of jewels underneath the horse’s matted crest.

The cloaked rider dropped to the ground in a silent splash, boots carving through the mud. They approached without concern for the handful of Sheikah guards that had dropped in their path, lining the bridge toward the temple’s steps.

“Let them come,” Impa called. The guards parted, one by one, looking over their shoulders at her.

The rider reached up and gripped the lining of their hood, long, slender fingers shockingly bright in the darkness and the wind.

They pulled back their hood just as another blitz of lightning stole the canyon’s breath.

“Zelda,” Impa breathed.

Her eyes were diamonds, deadly and alive, brighter than any moon and sharper than any peak. She said nothing, boots cracking across the bridge’s wooden beams, footsteps battling against the rumble of thunder for the world’s attention. Impa’s guards shrank back, pressing themselves into the railing, giving the esteemed princess of Hyrule as wide a berth as she so deserved.

She stopped, finally, only when Impa stood in her way, looking up the rain-swept surface of Zelda’s cloak into her sunlit eyes.

The moisture on her face wasn’t from the rain.

“We need to talk,” she said hoarsely.

“What of?”

She looked at the door to the temple behind her, lips thin and pursed. “Link,” she said, finally, in a voice far too small. “He’s gone, Impa.”

* * *

 

“Heavens, darling, you should have worn clothing better fitting to the weather.” Impa pulled the coat from Zelda’s shoulders and watched her shiver out of it, tunic soaked underneath. She kicked her boots against the temple’s inner wall, letting a puddle of water pool around them as she pried them off.

“I didn’t have much choice,” Zelda said. She hugged herself close and looked toward the open fire. “Circumstances were… rather dire.”

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Impa said, gesturing. “Warm yourself before you catch something nasty.”

Zelda padded across the room, bare feet leaving wet footprints against the wood. Her eyes were still wide and her face was still unreadable.

“Would you care for some tea?” Impa asked. Paya appeared at the top of the stairs, just behind Zelda, and Impa cast her a serious look.

“That would be lovely; thank you.”

Paya smiled and ducked back upstairs.

“My dear princess, please.” Impa settled down in her seat and did her best not to look too rattled. “Explain. This is all rather surprising.”

Zelda licked her lips. “I’m afraid I can’t explain it,” she said quietly. “Not in a manner that is satisfying.”

“Try.”

Zelda closed her eyes. “I was in the stables. The storm was approaching and they needed to be boarded closed. This kind of weather spooks Link’s horse, you know.”

Impa said nothing.

“I was gone for maybe an hour. The sun had long since set, but the area around Hateno was well-lit – it always is.”

“Hateno is one of the safest places in Hyrule,” Impa agreed.

Zelda’s eyes flashed white. “Then why is it, then, that Link was kidnapped? In his own home?”

Impa sat very still. “Kidnapped?” she asked, waiting for the storm to stop battering the temple walls.

“There is no other explanation,” Zelda said through gritted teeth.

She looked feral. Her hair was wild around her neck, pressed slick against her skin and buried beneath the collar of her tunic. Her face was dirty and covered in sooty fingerprints, and her jewelry, normally so carefully maintained and draped around her neck, was missing.

“Princess, please - breathe,” Impa said, leaning back. “When did all of this happen?”

“Less than four hours ago.”

Impa froze. “You rode here in four hours?” She pressed a finger to the space between her brows. “No wonder you look so tired.”

Zelda’s face twisted into a barbed frown. “This wasn’t something that could wait, Impa. Please.”

“How are you so certain he was taken?”

“I went inside before the storm hit,” she said, pulling her legs to her chest and hugging them close. She stared at Impa through the space between her knees. “I Intended to sleep before the wind would keep me awake. But when I reached the top of the stairs…”

She frowned again. Impa was surprised at how enraged it made her look.

“She took him,” Zelda bit out against the fabric of her stable jeans. “I know she did.”

“Who?” Impa asked.

Zelda met her in the eye and held her stare with something only a victim of one hundred years’ torment could summon. “Hylia,” she said, and turned to the fire.

* * *

 

Despite the frantic circumstances, Impa could not get another word out of Zelda for the rest of the night. Paya offered her bed on the temple’s second floor but Zelda ignored her, opting to instead remain by the fire and watch it burn low to the ground until it was nothing but ember and ash.

With the morning came the sun, and with the sun came heat and humidity. Impa prided herself with her patience, but even she had a boiling point. She waited for Paya to leave for the morning and tried her best to come up with an appropriate way to bridge the subject.

“Zelda,” Impa said, clearing her throat.

“I know,” Zelda said, quietly. She was still staring at the fireplace, still laying on the floor in her waterlogged clothes. “I’m sorry.”

“If what you say is true, and Lady Hylia _did_ take Link away, then I understand. It is natural to mourn.”

Zelda rose in one slow, fluid motion, eyes still burrowing deep into the remnants of the previous night’s fire. “I am not mourning.”

“Then what?” Impa asked.

“I am planning.” Zelda pursed her lips and looked past Impa’s shoulder, toward the temple’s front doors. She paused for a moment, a breath of air. “Not here.”

Impa blinked. “Not here?”

“Not here,” Zelda said, moving across the temple, slinging her dry cloak over her clothes. She forced one foot into a soggy boot, then the other. “Do you have somewhere we might be able to—oh! Perhaps the fields to the west?”

“There are rumors of dormant guardians in that region, Princess. Perhaps we can retreat to my study upstairs?”

“No,” Zelda said. Her eyes flickered to the door again, and then past it, as though she could see through. “There are prying ears.”

Impa nodded. “I see,” she said, and gathered a coat of her own. “I suppose you can explain yourself on the way?”

* * *

 

“The statues,” Zelda murmured, once they had cleared the final archway of Kakariko village and stepped out into the muddy, windy plains. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter when a burst of cool northern air slid down the mountainside. “They’re watching us.”

“Zelda, please, you must start making sense. There is little I can do to assist you otherwise.”

Zelda stopped walking. Impa stopped as well. From her perspective, the princess looked heavenly – like she was being veiled by the warmth of a prosperous Hyrule.

But then she shivered again, and Impa frowned.

“You’re falling ill,” she said. “We must return to the village. You need rest, Zelda.”

“No!”

Impa flinched, just a little, just enough. Zelda spun on her heel and stared at her, eyes fierce instead of angry _._ She looked like a natural disaster: indiscriminate but still dangerous.

“I came to you because you are the only one I trust, Impa,” she said. “Link is gone. The goddess took him – stole him away. Robbed him of a victory he deserves to relish in.”

“Are you sure?” Impa asked, meeting Zelda’s glare with one of her own. “Are you sure this was Hylia’s doing?”

“His clothes were all still there,” Zelda said. “They were heaped in a pile next to his bed – like he had risen from sleep and vanished before he had the chance to open his eyes all the way.” She swallowed; her eyes shimmered. “The Sheikah Slate was still there. So was the sword.”

“And he did not simply take his leave without first consulting you?” Impa asked.

“He more than has the right to his own autonomy,” Zelda snapped back. “As do you or I.”

“Did you _see_ him?” Impa asked. “Did you see him vanish? Disappear before your very eyes?”

Zelda’s face fell gaunt and pale. “Well, no; I—”

“My lady, please,” Impa said. “You are not well. You have no reason to be afraid of your own mind. For someone of your circumstance, it is more than understandable. You needn’t be ashamed of that.”

Zelda’s posture went stiff. “Impa, are you implying that I am lame in the head?”

“After the trials you had to endure under the thumb of Calamity Ganon, I am simply saying it is a possibility.”

“And what would you have me do, then?” Zelda said through gritted teeth. The halo of light around her, the one that lit her hair up like gold, shifted to something redder, something more sinister. “Lock myself in a cellar for a year?”

“Princess, please.”

“I knew you had grown soft in your old age, but I wasn’t aware you also grew daft, Impa.”

Impa’s eyes widened. So did Zelda’s.

She sighed and pinched her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Impa, that was uncalled for.”

Impa forced a smile. “As I said, you are tired. Stressed from the monotony of everyday life. It’s understandable to want to find something new to attach yourself to with your whole self, when that has been all you’ve ever known.”

“But even still, Impa. This feels different.” She frowned. “This feels _worse._ ”

* * *

 

They returned to the village center just as the sun reached the top of the sky. Impa noted that Zelda kept a wide berth from the goddess statue in the pond and took great care in arranging herself behind others when it was within sight.

“Your horse was taken to the stables after last night,” Cado said, crossing his arms. He smiled. “The poor thing was rather frightened from the storm.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt that,” Zelda said quietly. She sniffled and pulled her cloak closer around her chest despite the midday heat. “I apologize for being such a nuisance. Thank you for taking care of Epona for me.”

Impa smiled and placed a hand on the railing of the temple’s staircase bridge. “Do you have someone who can care for you? You look awfully pale, Princess.”

“I’ll manage,” Zelda said. She didn’t look at Impa – hadn’t looked at her since their private conversation. “Thank you, Impa. I apologize to you as well.”

Impa nodded. “Of course, Princess. You are always welcome here. You know that.”

She watched Zelda leave from the top of the bridge, hand pressed against the frame of the temple’s doors. She watched her mount her horse, pat its head, begin meandering down the eastern path and back towards Hateno Village.

She watched Paya dip out of the shadows behind Cado’s house and follow her, and despite herself, despite what she expected would happen, Impa didn’t bother to intervene.

* * *

Zelda wasn’t a liar. She wasn’t a fool.

She also could tell when she was being followed.

She made it to Kakariko Bridge before the feeling became too great to ignore;  she stopped and turned her horse around on a patch of overgrown moss halfway across. “I know you’re there.”

The winds whipping at her hair hid the reveal of the girl from Impa’s temple – her granddaughter? Zelda wasn’t certain. She stepped out from behind a boulder and stood at the far end of the bridge, Sheikah clothing snow-white in the sun.

“I overheard you and Grandmother speaking,” she called out against the roar of the river beneath them.

Zelda’s hands crushed the reins between her fingertips. “What part?” she asked.

“Most of it.” The girl fidgeted in place and took a step forward. “About Link.”

Zelda looked at the ground, weighing her options in her head. “Yes,” she said, eventually.

“And I want to help,” the girl said. She turned and stared out toward the oncoming river. “If I can.”

Zelda wasn’t a fool because she understood when she had been dealt a poor hand and had the chance to win back the favor of the game.

“What would you say that might make me believe you?” Zelda asked, sitting up straighter in her saddle and doing her best not to look as sick as she felt.

“I believe you,” the girl said, “because I can feel it. There is something wrong with the goddess Hylia, something sinister, and I can feel it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! This is definitely something a little bit different from what I usually do, but I just really loved BOTW's Zelda and wanted to give her the time of day she deserved.
> 
> Harass me on **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites)**!! I don't bite.


	2. Chapter 2

They took lodging at the nearby stables for the evening, in part due to the fact that Paya (which was her name, Zelda learned) held a small number of horses in their care. Zelda sat in front of a quiet fire and watched the strange beetle man make his rounds with the other stable patrons, trying to ignore the biting feeling of wasted time eating away at the rear of her mind.

“Are we safe here?” Paya asked. Her eyes lit up against the flames of the fire like candles.

Zelda gripped her cloak tighter against her chest. “Yes,” she said. There were no statues nearby, and the closest shrine, half-submerged in a low pond, was far enough away. Besides – she wasn’t quite sure yet if the monks were working for Hylia or not.

Regardless, it was best to stay cautious. Staying cautious is what kept her alive in the past – and the opposite was just as much true.

“What of your premonitions, then?” Zelda asked. “You say you can tell that Hylia has been corrupted. How?”

“I pray to her sometimes,” Paya said, looking into the fire. “When it doesn’t rain, and the crops start to fail. When Impa falls ill.” She swallowed a breath. “When Link didn’t awaken.”

Zelda nodded. “Understandable.”

“I could always tell,” Impa said, smiling. “I could always tell she was watching, and listening, and taking heed of my requests. She was never malicious – only helpful.”

Zelda leaned forward until she felt the hairs on her arms start to heat up and burn. “But?”

“But recently, things have changed,” Paya said. “I haven’t felt anything when I pray at her shrine. At first, I just thought I was feeling things. I even wondered if I’d hallucinated everything before then, and that only now were my senses catching up to me.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think so.”

The sun fell behind the Dueling Peaks; the stables were submerged in the purple-black shadow of early evening. Zelda watched the horses out of the corner of her eye, watched the shrine even closer.

“What do you think happened?” Paya asked. She pulled her legs to her chest and pressed her face into her knees. “Surely this is not Hylia’s doing.”

Zelda held her tongue. Instead, she said, “Perhaps not. But regardless, something is happening. It’s important that we investigate what that might be, for much the same reasons as Link had to explore Hyrule on his journey.”

“Does that mean you’d like me to accompany you?” Paya asked. Her eyes were wide and energized from across the fire.

“Is that an option?” Zelda asked in kind. “Do you have the choice to make a commitment like that?”

“Of course I do,” Paya said. “I’m not a child.”

“I just want to make sure I’m not stepping on Impa’s toes.”

Paya snorted and batted a hand at her. “Well, you are, but it isn’t as though I’m turning you down. So I’m just as much complicit as you are.”

“That’s reassuring,” Zelda said, smiling. She stiffened and let out a sharp cough against the back of her hand. Paya winced.

“Are you certain I cannot help you with that?” she asked, turning around on her seat and pulling a small pack from where she’d left it behind them. “I brought medicines, among other things.”

“Anything to help with a cold?” Zelda asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of sorts,” Paya said. She pulled at the pouch’s drawstring and let it fall open, sticking her hand inside. “I have common Hylian remedies, as well as a few of Goron design, but I’m assuming you would prefer something a little bit more holistic instead of…”

“Rocky?” Zelda said, smiling in a bitten-off sort of way.

Paya laughed. She pulled out a small bottle and offered it from around the fire. “Here,” she said. It was full of a light blue powder, like crushed-up silent princess flowers. When she took the offering and shook the container in front of the fire, the dust sparkled, and she realized that must have been _precisely_ what it was – among other things, no doubt. “Make a glass of tea tonight before bed and stir in a spoonful of the powder. Do it again tomorrow morning. It will help curb the symptoms quite considerably.”

Zelda set the jar down on the chair next to her. “Thank you,” she said, honestly.

“I only want to help,” Paya said. She licked her lips and looked to the side, toward where the stable’s other patrons gathered underneath the massive tent as the night drew near. “If Link really is missing—”

“He is,” Zelda interrupted a little too hastily, and winced when Paya’s eyes widened. “He’s gone. I don’t know how or why, but I have my suspicions. I only wish to test them, that is all. I would not ask any further of you Paya, if you so choose to join me.”

 _I will not force you to denounce your goddess_ was left unspoken, but Zelda was confident in Paya’s abilities to read between the lines.

If the time came, she thought, the matter of Hylia would be something Zelda could handle on her own. She would have to.

* * *

 

The rain was torrential. Winds whipped at Zelda’s hair and clothes and soul, sucking the heat out of her skin and pulling it down the valley toward the sea where it belonged. She should have been inside, should have been in bed where nothing could hurt her and the only thing to worry about would be bespoke nightmares, tailor-fit to whatever wartime trauma decided to crawl out of the recesses of her mind for the evening and lay waste to her sanity.

Instead, she was carving a path along the hillside behind Hateno Village, barely in her stable clothes, watching lightning lay waste to the valley between the Peak of Awakening and the Cliffs of Quince.

She found what she was looking for mainly because she already knew where it was.

“Speak,” she gasped, mud sticking to the bottoms of her boots, clothes drenched well past the point of usability. She gripped the rock face next to the silent black statue and waited.

Lightning sparked across the sky and struck Hateno’s Sheikah Tower. The blue light from the tower’s terminal surged across the horizon and flickered out, disappearing into the storm.

The statue said nothing. Its eyes glowed an eerie purple in the night air. Zelda’s rage bubbled underneath her skin, turning the rain on her arms into acid.

“I told you,” she breathed, voice flat and heartless, “to _speak_.”

“And what of?” the statue said, voice light and airy like grains of sand falling through an hourglass. Despite being ready for it, it still sent spikes of unease through her chest. “One should not speak without reason.”

“You have plenty of reason,” Zelda spat. “You and your demonic ilk are working the magic of the dark times over this land again, and I won’t have it.”

“The magic of the dark times?” the statue said. It made a sound - something like grinding rocks. Zelda realized it was laughter. “My dear, you are royal, but that does not give you the right to claim influence over that which is far above you.”

“Where is he?” Zelda asked – _demanded_.

“You lay claim to this information as though it is your own,” the statue said. “As though you are deserving of what it might mean within.”

“Stop speaking in code and speak in _truth_ ,” Zelda said.

“And the truth is dangerous. The truth isn’t ready to be held in mortal hands.”

There was something in the statue’s voice that betrayed the tone of its rejection. Zelda narrowed her eyes.

“But?”

“But,” the statue continued, “perhaps it can be given on loan, and held by a caretaker for as long as is necessary.”

Zelda looked down the path toward the woods, biting her lip. She should have known – there was always a catch. All information was worthy of transaction; it was diplomacy 101. Her father would be ashamed of her.

“What do you want?”

“Only for you to prove it to yourself first before you hear it from me,” the statue said. “Take a horse. Ride to Kakariko. Ask the old one what Hylia might have in store for a retired champion such as yours.”

Zelda’s heart fell out and faded into the darkness with the surging rainwater.

“No,” she said.

“Perhaps not,” the statue said. It smiled through its words. “But perhaps so. Only those you trust can give you the information you seek.”

“He has barely had time to rest,” Zelda said. Her eyes started to cloud over; the faded light of evening twisted into sloppy watercolor. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Only those you trust,” the statue said. “Seek wisely.”

And then it was silent again - and Zelda was crying in the wilderness, alone, mourning for someone she wasn’t ready to mourn.

* * *

 

Zelda woke to a high fever and a chill down her spine that felt like ice had taken hold of her heart.

Her pulse raced against her eardrums as the inner sanctum of the Dueling Peak stables came into view, lit dimly by the morning sunshine through the drawn tent flaps.

“Princess?”

Zelda rolled over with a low groan, shivering underneath her wool blanket. An ice storm must have fallen in the evening – she should have noticed the signs before falling asleep. She should have prepared herself for a chilly evening. She should—

A hand pressed against her skin, ice cold and _so_ pleasant.

“Oh, goodness,” Paya said. “You’re burning up. Did you take the medicine like I suggested?”

“Yes,” Zelda rasped. She curled into a ball on the stable bed. “I must be worse off than I first thought.”

Paya shrank back and disappeared behind Zelda where she could not see, rummaging through her things. “I might have something else that can help,” she said. “Temporarily.”

“I think the only thing I will need at this point is rest,” Zelda said weakly. “And that is a cure I cannot afford.”

“You may not have much of a choice, Princess,” Paya said, voice quiet. She held another bottle – this one filled with small pills – in her hands.

“What’s this?” Zelda asked, doing her best to focus her swimming vision on the space in front of her. “More elixirs?”

“Actually, this is just aspirin,” Paya said.

* * *

 

“You mustn’t try to ride today,” Paya called out behind her, voice high and jittery and full of nerves. The other Hylians gathered around the outside of the tent turned to watch Zelda amble her way toward the stables, and Paya seemed to shrink back at the attention, following behind without a word but just as hesitantly.

“We don’t have a choice, Paya,” Zelda breathed, pressing her face into Epona’s mane and finding it hard to summon the energy to do much else. “At the very least, I will be able to rest better in my— _Link’s_ home than here in a stable inn.”

She winced at the slip of her tongue. Hateno wasn’t her home. It couldn’t be. But Hyrule Castle wasn’t much of _anything_ anymore, let alone a safe place to live, so Hateno was as close as she could get. However, regardless of that fact, it did _not_ mean she had a right to lay claim to Link’s property. He had earned the right, after all, to call it his and his alone.

“Can’t you wait another day?” Paya said. “The villagers of Kakariko have special arrangements with this stable. We can stay here as long as necessary, if money is an object.”

Zelda smiled, hidden behind her horse. “I may be an estranged ruler of a fallen kingdom, but the royal treasury still lines my pockets, Paya. Ganon protected the castle’s wealth just as much as he stole it away.”

“Regardless, Princess – you can’t leave yet. You might injure yourself.”

“And wouldn’t that be an amusing story we can tell Link and the rest of the country once we’ve won him back,” Zelda said, a little too forcefully. She winced and rolled against Epona’s flank, turning back around. “Sorry.”

“No, I think I understand,” Paya said, smiling below the eyes.

“Alright then,” Zelda said, breathing through her nose in an attempt to stabilize herself. She didn’t quite have vertigo, but she certainly had _something_ , and the idea of throwing herself over her horse’s shoulder and letting it drag her across Blatchery Plain was less than pleasant to think about. She forced the nausea down and pressed a boot into the stirrup of Epona’s saddle. “Let’s go.”

* * *

 

Epona was a pleasant horse – nothing quite like the one she’d had before during her short-lived tenure as an explorer in the days when her father let her out of sight, but he certainly did well considering the circumstances. Link had said, in not so many words, that Epona came from a field near Safula Hill – somewhere near where _her_ horse, _her_ Epona had been when she’d had to leave him behind.

There was a chance, then – a chance that this horse was closer to hers than she dared let herself hope. So, instead, she resigned herself to keeping a curt distance of attachment between herself and Link’s Epona – because that was precisely who he belonged to.

Besides, this Epona was rather daft in the head.

“Stop it, you fool,” Zelda bit out, knuckles turned white and shaky from gripping the reins so tightly. The horse veered away from the bushes, crashing through twigs and mud, but not before a spike of petrified wood jabbed itself into her thigh.

“Are you alright?” Paya’s quiet voice weltered from behind.

“Fine,” Zelda bit out. She jabbed a fist into the horse’s shoulder blade, despite knowing it would barely feel it. Epona stopped and waited for Paya to approach, perched high on the back of a young chestnut-colored female with a penchant for sniffing flowers.

“He seems determined not to walk on the path,” Paya noted.

“Or he’s simply broken.”

“Or,” Paya said, pointing, “perhaps aware of something you aren’t.”

They were staring up the mountain pass that wrapped around Camphor Pond, just on the outskirts of Hateno Village. Zelda could see the plumes of smoke from the fireplaces lit in town. She could hear the rabble of children carried through the wind.

Epona would not walk up the path.

“What?” Zelda bit out, jabbing her heel in the horse’s flank. “You are truly something else. Have you never seen a hillside before?”

“Perhaps it has something to do with his rider,” Paya said almost off-handedly, only realizing what she’d said after she’d said it. “Oh! I, um. Did not mean to—”

“Come on!” Zelda said. Her head was spinning, her eyes were glossed over from a fog of dizziness, and her pulse thundered behind her ears like water rushing through a clogged, pressurized drain. Something was going to give, and the more she pressed Epona forward, the more she forced him to move, the likelier it was that her sanity would be the first to go.

“Perhaps we should leave the horses here?” Paya said, but Zelda snarled and jabbed the dull ends of her boots between a pair of Epona’s ribs.

The horse jolted in surprise, and Zelda barely had the wherewithal to grab hold of the saddle before he bolted across the path and toward the pond.

“Zelda!” Paya yelled from the right, from behind, from the left, from _far_ behind. Epona sprinted through the rocky underbrush around Camphor Pond, up the hillside around the woods, through a small waterfall. Zelda could barely keep herself steady, could barely hold on – Epona kept running, kept _sprinting_ until she couldn’t tell up from down and water from sky.  

And then he stopped.

Zelda breathed choppy, coughed breaths against Epona’s neck, eyelids pressed closed and stomach swimming. Her ears rang like chiming bells, and the stars behind her eyes made patterns with the light show inside her rattled brain.

She felt like throwing up. When she pitched her face sideways in a weak attempt to not make a mess all over her horse, she opened her eyes – just a little, just enough.

Enough to see the horned statue from the previous day sitting at Epona’s feet. Enough to recognize it, and enough to spew the contents of her empty stomach all over its face.

 She didn’t feel herself all off Epona’s saddle, but she didn’t feel herself fall unconscious, either, so it was a healthy trade.

The only thing she thought before passing out was a hope Paya would find her before whatever demon-possessed nightmare living inside that statue woke up and found her first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to do a LOT of horse terminology research for this chapter, lmao. Thank you so much for reading!! 🤗🤗🤗 
> 
>  
> 
> **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/SmeDuHt)**


	3. Chapter 3

“Hello there,” someone said in a chipper, sing-song voice.

Zelda shot upright, eyes suddenly brighter than moonlight, lungs barreling through breaths like a runaway boulder. The world settled around her, peripheral vision sharpening from an out-of-focus blur into something bizarre and unexpected.

She was in a strange room, lit by strange light, sprawled out against a red leather sofa like she’d just sat down with a novel and a pleasant glass of hard cider. The walls were bookshelves – stack after stack of bookshelves. Beside the sofa was a fireplace, massive and framed on either side by stark-white columns of marble.

Across from her, nursing a pathetically tiny cup of tea and warming his feet by the fire, was a man. He was wearing a robe and frowning at her from behind the fringe of his hair.

“Where am I?” Zelda asked. “Where is Hateno Village?”

The man shrugged, somehow, with half of his body. His tea didn’t move. “Who’s to say,” he said. “Here. There. Around the bend. Never can tell with places.”

Zelda sat up further, her fingertips digging gashes into the sofa. It _felt_ real, as much as she was loathe to admit it. She looked behind her; there was nothing there but more books.

“Yes, not much to look at it, is it?” the man said. “ _This_ place, that is. Too much reading material. If I had any say in the matter, there’d be a pool – maybe a jacuzzi. Have you ever sat in a jacuzzi, Princess?” He sighed and sank back into his chair. “That’s not to mention the fact it looks like this place was decorated by someone who stares at the sun all day. Would it have _killed_ her to install some mood lighting?”

He grumbled into the lip of his teacup. Zelda blinked.

“But, I can’t really complain much,” the man continued, gesturing vaguely with a sweep of his robe sleeve. “There isn’t much else I get to do around here, so I suppose it’s pittance compared to the alternative.”

Zelda looked up. There didn’t seem to be a roof; the room stretched off into unsettlingly vague darkness.

“What is this?” she murmured. “Witchcraft? More Sheikah technology nonsense?”

The man snorted – it was a very undignified sound, but he obviously didn’t care. “What’s the difference?” he asked. “To you, at least.”

Zelda narrowed her eyes. “And who are _you_?” she asked, finally, as though a switch in her mind had finally thrown toward the ‘common sense’ setting.

The man hummed. “Now _that_ ,” he said, “is a tricky question. I go by all sorts of names, come across as all sorts of things. Dark magic is more than just a crowd-pleaser, I’m sure you know.” He gestured wildly in front of him. “You know. Castle. Big pig. That sort of thing. Really nabs your attention.”

Zelda was silent.

The man started to take another sip of his drink but froze halfway. “Oh, that reminds me – apologies for your little dizzy spell back there. I always forget how fragile you Hylians are. You really can’t go wrong with traveling through good, old-fashioned steel, but sometimes hitching a ride in a flesh-and-bone body is all you have at your disposal.”

“My body?” Zelda asked. “What? Are you responsible for my sickness?”

“Yes,” the man said. “Had to make sure you followed through on your part of our little bargain. Didn’t want to be giving away something to a cheater, after all.”

He spoke to Zelda like an old friend – or, at least, like an old acquaintance. “Do I know you?” she asked, hoping _this_ question would draw a response out of him that made more sense.

“Ah!” he said. “A fantastic question. Yes, you do. Well, a version of you knows me.” He pursed his lips. “And another version knows me because I tried to kidnap you and use your soul to resurrect an old friend of mine. Silly, really, how times change. How _people_ change.” He spoke wistfully, with a hand pressed to his chest.

A knot of cold steel sunk into Zelda’s gut. “You kidnapped me?”

“Yes – hilarious, isn’t it?” the man said. “Can you imagine? Anyways – there’s a lot of layering going on between us. Lots of interactions at lots of different points in time. Which reminds me: good to see you again! How are you?”

He leaned forward and smiled a dastardly, disgusting grin that felt about as cheap to look at as the lining of his robe.

“I’m starting to feel like perhaps I’ve been kidnapped again,” Zelda said through a tight-lipped frown. “By someone whose name I still do _not_ know.”

“Oh, you know my name,” the man said. “Well, you know what I _am_. Rather frequently, I go by Ghirahim.” He waved a hand again. “That’s how you knew me the _last_ time I kidnapped you. Not to say that I _am_ kidnapping you again, of course. Silly little slip of the tongue there.”

“I don’t recognize that name,” Zelda said. “Ghirahim. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

“That’s because you’re still thinking with your silly little Hylian sensibilities,” Ghirahim said. He flung his hands up into the air, teacup and all. Zelda was starting to think the thing was empty. “You’ve got to think bigger picture! There’s more to the world than _just_ Hyrule, of course!”

Zelda furrowed her brow. Anger was starting to uncoil the knot of fear in her gut and replace it, strip by strip. “This isn’t helping.”

“Oh fine,” Ghirahim grumbled. “You never were much fun. Too much doom-and-gloom.” He sighed and placed his teacup on its saucer in his lap. “You probably know me as a statue on the outskirts of your Hateno Village.”

Zelda’s eyes widened. She leapt to her feet and took a step backward, her legs pressing painfully into the sofa’s wooden stripping.

“What?” she whispered.

“I know!” Ghirahim said. “Most people only know me as ‘horned statue’ or ‘that thing that scared the urine out of me when I was age five and wandering where I mustn’t’. A truly unbefitting fate – especially for a world like this one. I quite like this Hyrule. Not a lot of people. Plenty of real estate, though.”

Zelda’s fingers tensed into fists, nails carving painful divots into the flesh of her palms. “You’re the horned statue. The one that sent me on the fool’s errand to Kakariko Village.”

“Ah!” Ghirahim said, clucking like a cucco. “Not so. You learned something very important on your journey to Kakariko, did you not?”

“Are you trying to help me?” Zelda asked, surprised. “Is that honestly what you think you’re doing?”

“I know – it’s not my style, is it?” Ghirahim raised an eyebrow. “I’m not the best, sure, but I’m all you’ve got.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, pressing his fingertips together. “Well, that and the Paya girl. And a few others I won’t get into now.”

“What?”

“I’m saying,” Ghirahim said, “that this is possible. You are on the right track. The hesitance of the people you thought you could trust shows you that it’s a painful subject – something too painful for them to prioritize friendships over. When a friend asks you for help in finding their lost lover, what kind of person would you be to turn them away and claim they were lame in the head?”

Zelda choked on a breath of air.

"You'll need more of my help, of course," Ghirahim said. "You're going to need a god to help you take down another god."

"So it's true, then?" Zelda muttered, falling back onto the sofa. "It's Hylia."

"Of course it's Hylia!" Ghirahim said. "She's never really been up to any good. Well, from my perspective, at least. I tend to get on her bad side rather regularly, though, so its no wonder." He waved a hand at the room around them. "This place? Definitely her doing. She has _no_ sense of style."

Zelda frowned. "I don't know about that," she said. "It reminds me of my study in the castle. It's comforting, being surrounded by knowledge."

“I should have known _you_ would say that," Ghirahim grumbled. "Regardless. There is something rotten festering in Hyrule, and this time, it's not my doing. Shocking, I know."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Zelda said. "How do I know you're not just lying through your teeth and using me as an opportunity to wreak more havoc on my people, especially after all the suffering they've already had to endure?"

"Because Hylia put me in this box," Ghirahim said. "I'm not my charming stone statue self by choice. She uses me to do all the dirty work she knows her thralls have to deal with because she doesn't have the presence of mind and the rampant selflessness needed to actually do her job." He ran a hand through his hair and groaned. "I'm forced to speak to those that approach me in riddles. Do you know how infuriating that is?"

"You seemed to take great pleasure in it when I was on my knees begging for help," Zelda said, narrowing her eyes.

"That's because you were asking all the wrong questions," Ghirahim said. "'Can you give me back Link?' 'Why are you doing this?'" He pitched his voice up an octave in a condescending, parodying manner. "Honestly. You probably could have gotten a lot farther if you hadn't been throwing around baseless accusations like those. They hurt."

"You'll live," Zelda bit out.

Ghirahim looked around the room and sighed. "Unfortunately," he said. "But! I may as well make the most out of a good situation when one arises." He stood for the first time, setting his teacup and saucer on a small table that Zelda hadn't even noticed. He was thin – a lot thinner than Zelda had first realized. Thin and pale. "Shall we?"

"Shall we what?"

"Well, we obviously need to rescue your Link," Ghirahim said, shrugging. He adjusted his robe. "That’s why you came to me, is it not? In a roundabout sort of way, perhaps, but nonetheless.”

“What can we do?” Zelda asked, standing as well. “Assuming you _can_ do anything. Other than talk.”

“Ooh, ouch,” Ghirahim said, snorting. “At least I won’t be bored around you, that’s for certain.” He cracked his neck. “Well, for starters, we can leave.”

Zelda looked around the room. “I thought you said you were trapped. By Hylia, no less.”

Ghirahim turned away and grumbled underneath his breath. “Yes, there is the small matter of _that_ ,” he said. “Luckily, I think I have come up with a simple enough workaround.”

Zelda said nothing.

“I can occupy objects, see,” Ghirahim continued, as though he’d expected her to remain silent. “That’s how I spied on you the first time. Well, not so much spied as _oversaw._ There I go with the tongue-slipping again.”

“And?”

“ _And_ I don’t need to occupy a living body in order to move around.” Ghirahim spun on his heel and pointed at her. His snow-white hair flashed across his face; he had a tattoo under his eye, something dark and strange and more than enough to remind Zelda that who she was dealing with was _not_ Hylian.

 “You’ll see. When you wake up, it will all make sense.” Ghirahim approached her, stopped within arm’s reach, hesitated to move closer. He paused and pursed his lips. “You know, every time I have seen this story play out, thousands of times, over thousands of lifetimes, it has been you that is in jeopardy. You that requires saving.” He smiled in a far-off way - wistfully, even. “To be honest, Princess, I’m glad. I’m glad you have been given the chance to prove yourself, and to prove that fool Hylia wrong.”

He disappeared in a flash of geometric scatter.

-

Zelda woke to Epona’s distressed nudging. The gentle sound of running water rumbled at the back of her mind, and she blinked, forcing focus back into her eyes.

She was back in reality. She was back in Hyrule. The stone statue sat quietly beside her, as overgrown as ever. On the ridge, Zelda could see Link’s home.

“Hello, silly thing,” Zelda croaked, voice hoarse. She rubbed Epona’s nose and used his reins to pull herself straight again. “Are you satisfied now? You ran me ragged and made me ill.”

“Zelda!”

She heard Paya’s voice above her, on the ridge leading into Hateno Village. She heard other voices, other Hylians – they must have been looking for her.

“How long was I out for?” she murmured, straightening out Epona’s straps out of nerves and confusion more than anything else. When she was sure the saddle was tight, she climbed on, content to pretend her strange dream had never happened.

Something flickered out of the corner of her eye and she froze.

At her horse’s feet, half-buried in mud at the base of the horned statue, was a sword. It was black and jagged and cut from smooth, silvery metal that seemed to bend light away in a permanent shadow.

In its hilt was a diamond. It looked like Ghirahim’s tattoo. And, most importantly, it hadn't been there before.

She froze, licking her lips, looking over her shoulder at the cusp of the hill where the path terminated and spat her out near the entrance to town. Nobody was coming - not at the moment, at least.

“Should I?” she murmured to herself. The horse, ever willing to play a critical part in Zelda’s headaches, grunted in response.

The blade was sharp to the touch and cold like frost. It felt heavy in her hands, like it was balanced for someone stronger than she was. Zelda frowned and wiped off its handle.

When she returned over the hill to greet Paya, nobody commented on the strange, demonic sword strapped to her back – least of all Zelda herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghirahim is such a gay disaster. I love him.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/SmeDuHt)**


	4. Chapter 4

Link’s house was exactly as Zelda had left it. Sunshine dipped through the windows and danced through the dust clinging to the air between the kitchen and the staircase, and the weapon stands, full of all sorts of trinkets Link had found throughout his travels that Zelda hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to ask about yet, glistened in the darkness.

“How lovely,” Paya whispered to her right, peeking through the doorway.

“Yes,” Zelda said, trying not to sound bitter. She wasn’t bitter, she was upset. Because the only thing that made that house worth anything – the only thing that made it a _home_ – was gone.

 _“Show me,”_ a voice said in her head.

Zelda went shock-still.

“Did you say that?” Paya asked.

“No.”

“Of course she didn’t say that,” the voice said again. “Do I really sound that staccato?”

“No,” Zelda said again, sharply.

The weight on her shoulder vanished, and Zelda stumbled forward, surprised. The light in the room grew sinister, grew _unreal_ , and something manifested against the stairs, all black and maroon and silver-white.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ghirahim said, dusting himself off. He wore a dark shirt and grey trousers, hidden in the shadow of a blood-red, open-front tunic. “I forgot to mention I could actively talk to you in that form.” He looked down and shook a leg. “As well as this one. Would you look at that?”

Paya made a small sound and grabbed Zelda’s arm. “What? Who is that?”

“A nuisance, I suspect,” Zelda said, sighing. “But perhaps one that can help.”

“Of course I can help!” Ghirahim said, standing ramrod-straight. “What exactly do you take me for?”

“A demon?” Paya said.

“A demon _lord_ ,” Ghirahim corrected. He looked up the staircase, his unnaturally-white hair fluttering away from his face. “Now, where is it?”

“Where is what?” Zelda asked.

“The slate.” He took a step. “You said you’ve touched nothing since he vanished. Does that mean it was still amongst his clothes?”

Zelda hummed. “I didn’t dare touch it. Not if what you said was true.”

“Yes, that was probably a good call.” Ghirahim ran his clawed hand across the wall as he moved, gracefully disturbing. “Travelling by way of Hylia’s blessing might have only served to put you at her graces.”

“Hence the horses?” Paya asked, still following closely in Zelda’s footsteps, peeking over the second story railing and watching Ghirahim rifle through Link’s belongings, still untrusting.

Ghirahim kicked away Link’s clothes with the toe of his boot, squatting low to the ground in an effortless glide. He looked corporeal in his home, skin the color an off-grey paste. Outside of an imaginary room, no longer lit by a fake fire, Ghirahim looked ghoulish.

“Ah!” he cried, taking a step back, barely staying upright. The hilt of the Master Sword, hidden underneath Link’s bright blue tunic and half-buried underneath the bed, shone bright.

“Problem?” Zelda asked. She bent over to grab the sword.

“No, no,” Ghirahim said, voice low. He dusted himself off. “I should have been more careful. Fi doesn’t quite care for me much. Not that I blame her.”

Zelda looked down at her hands. She started to unsheathe it. “The sword has a name?”

“Don’t do that,” Ghirahim snapped, yanking the sword out of her hand and tossing it onto the unmade bed behind him. “You can’t use the sword, either.”

Zelda let out a sharp breath. “What exactly _are_ we supposed to be doing?” she asked. “You’ve said a lot about what we can’t do, but not a lot about what we _can_.”

“All in due time, Princess.”

“I prefer action over inaction.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve been stuck out of phase battling a demon pig for one hundred years. I’ve done plenty of waiting.”

Ghirahim snorted and continued rifling through Link’s belongings. Zelda tried not to show her disgust too evidently on her face. “Calamity Ganon is not a demon,” he said, picking up Link’s belt. “He was a natural disaster – nothing more.”

“So what do we do about _this_ natural disaster?”

“Is that what you might call a goddess?”

“ _Ghirahim_ ,” Zelda bit out.

“We need to travel across Hyrule,” he said, suddenly rather serious. “Hylia is all-powerful, as any god may be, but she has to channel it into this world somehow. That is done rather… _mathematically_.”

Zelda’s eyes widened. “There is a science to the powers of the gods?”

“So to speak,” Ghirahim said, shrugging. “She is able to link to this world through the power of prayer and subjugation. It can be done anywhere in Hyrule, but there is one specific place – one specific _artifact_ where it is most common, and most appropriate.”

Memories with her father, sitting prostrate on the cold marble floor of the Temple of Time, flashed through her mind. It was a simpler era, then; there was an evil, but it was straight-cut and easy enough to comprehend. At least, it was at the time. The horror of reality was just that, and the ignorance of improper foresight left them in a strange state of deluded peace.

In all those times, in all those moments when fear started to win, Zelda simply stared up at the massive statue of Hylia at the front of the Temple. Her heart would settle only then.

“I see,” Zelda said, and sat down at the foot of the bed.

“Ahh, you have a problem with that,” Ghirahim said. He dropped Link’s belt back onto the pile of his things and reached for the Shiekah Slate, newly revealed by the shifting of his trousers on the floor. “That’s unfortunate. You’ll live, though.”

“What?” Paya asked. “What must we do?”

“Destroy the statues of Hylia,” Zelda said, running a hand through her hair. “All of them.”

“And then what?” Paya asked.

“That’s a good question.” Zelda looked at Ghirahim. “After we’ve desecrated the holy lands of this country and presumably made ourselves enemies of all the peaceful peoples of Hyrule, _then_ what?”

Ghirahim snorted and swiped a thumb across the Shiekah Slate’s screen. His face lit up in an otherworldly pastel blue. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose.”

“No,” Zelda said. “I’m not going to take that. I need to know exactly what we’re planning on doing to get Link back. I won’t let his fate be left up to happenstance and” -she waved a hand- “ _crossing bridges_.”

Ghirahim looked at her, his slate grey eyes sharp like graphite. “I should have known you would have been troublesome from the start. Couldn’t even wait for the adventure to start, could you?” He slid down onto the bed next to her, barely making a sound save for the creak of Link’s mattress. “Think of it this way. Let’s say we destroy all of Hylia’s physical connections to this plane. She is cut off from the rest of Hyrule, and from its people. What would be the _best_ way of drawing her attention? To _force_ her into the light?”

Zelda narrowed her eyes. “We leave a statue.”

“All but one,” Ghirahim said. “We destroy all but one.”

* * *

 

 Zelda was only slightly ashamed of raiding Link’s closet and ‘borrowing’ his gear. She was even fine with taking his horse, only up until the point when Epona started taking them down the wrong path again and refused to budge against Zelda’s frantic twisting of the reins.

She had taken a tasteful, navy-blue tunic from Link’s cupboards and replaced her faded stable trousers with a firmer, leather pair. She was lucky Link wasn’t much bigger than she was. An empty scabbard laid across her back, unoccupied only because Ghirahim walked beside her – the weight was a strange one, but she grew used to it as they began their journey down the hillside towards greater Hyrule.

“I think your horse is broken,” Ghirahim said when Epona tried to wander off the trail. He was wearing a longer cloak now – something similar to the ruby-red tunic from before, but this one stretched past his knees and hid most of his body away from sight, making him look like a silently-stalking specter in the early morning sun.

“Yes,” Zelda said, sighing. “It seems so, doesn’t it?”

They’d started their journey by resting first; it was Paya’s idea to recharge and regroup with a proper plan before they did anything else. Zelda took the time to lock down the house, shuttering away the pair of cuccos she had bought at market less than a month prior and leaving their fate up to the intermittent supervision of Bolson and his crew.

“So, we’re heading first to Lanayru,” Paya asked, riding her horse on Zelda’s other side. “Forgive me for asking again, but I tend to get so muddled in the details.”

“The Zora Domain, yes,” Zelda said. Epona tried to duck away again, and she whapped him in the forehead with the end of the reins. “Would you cut that out, you ridiculous beast?”

“I worry about the Zora,” Ghirahim grumbled. “I’ve never quite been able to trust them. Not for a long while, at least.”

“I’m not sure what kinds of Zora you’ve encountered in your many journeys,” Paya said, “but these Zora, _our_ Zora, are nothing but kind-hearted and well-spirited people. They will help us at whatever cost necessary.”

“And if they don’t?” Zelda asked. She wasn’t stupid. Many, many years had passed since the last time she had been in the Zora Domain, and from what she had managed to pry out of Link in between his long lapses of silence, they knew how to hold a grudge.

“Then we destroy their statue and move on,” Ghirahim said. “Really, Princess, I’m not quite sure why you’re having such a difficult time connecting the dots.”

Zelda looked down at him with a scowl. “Perhaps because, after all of this is over, I have to remain to rule over a land full of people I angered by befouling their religious artifacts, all the while you are forced back into your stone statue to ruminate?”

“That’s certainly one way to put it.” Ghirahim kicked a rock. “No need to be testy.”

“Oh, you’ll know when I’m testy,” Zelda muttered under her breath, and turned back to the road ahead.

* * *

 

They made it to Fort Hateno without much difficulty. Zelda did her best not to avert her eyes away from the fields between the fortress gates and the Dueling Peaks, but even still, the charred husks of the dormant Guardians half-submerged in dirt were accusatory enough. 

“This land,” Ghirahim said quietly. “It holds importance.”

Zelda held Epona’s reins tighter and kept her stare frontward. “Yes.”

“This was the sight of the last great battle in the war against Calamity Ganon,” Paya said. “They say Link himself destroyed each and every one of these immobile Guardians. I cannot imagine what that must have been like to see.”

“It was terrifying. And less noble than you think,” Zelda said, frowning. She opened her mouth to correct her, but instead, she settled on, “He was trying to survive.”

“Ah, yes. I’m sorry, Princess.” She pointed toward the dip in the hills where the river appeared; Zelda could just barely see the beginning stone braces of Kakariko Bridge. “If we return to the village, I might even be able to show Master Ghirahim a painting of the events that transpired.”

Zelda sighed. It wasn’t the first time Paya had suggested returning for Impa’s guidance, nor was it the first time she had expressed interest in visiting Kakariko Village first instead of the Zora. “We can’t, Paya. You know that.”

Zelda couldn’t risk her relationship with Impa. She couldn’t conceive of what she might say if their quest turned out to be in vain. Or, even worse, misguided.

They reached the fork in the road by the bridge and Zelda turned to the left toward the mountains. “This way,” she said, and didn’t look back.

* * *

 

The Dueling Peaks were as monstrous and bizarre up close as they were from afar, and Zelda did her best not to shiver when the shadows from the mountaintops swallowed her up and left her cold.

She could see the stables behind them, could see the sunlight and the green grass and the shimmer of the Ha Dahamar Shrine against the currents of the river. Inside the valley, however, was darkness.

“I admit,” Paya said, sitting up straighter on her horse, “I do not care much for the Dueling Peaks.”

“Really?” Ghirahim said, stepping out in front of them. He spun in a loose circle, hands raised. “I revel in the darkness. The cool touch of uncertainty leads only to the mistress of adventure, of course!”

Two arrows blitzed past his ear. Ghirahim blinked.

Off to the side, hidden by fallen rocks and the piecemeal remains of a bokoblin camp, was a Yiga archer.

“Damn,” Zelda hissed, and pulled back on the reins. Epona got the message for once, though, because he moved of his own free will, sprinting out into the light. Paya followed close behind. Zelda felt the weight of Ghirahim’s sword form settle on her back again and she frowned, looking over her shoulder.

The archer stalked forward, dancing and jigging from side to side but coming ever closer with each furious heartbeat in Zelda’s ear. Was that hers? Was it Ghirahim’s? The _horse’s?_

Paya swung around and pulled a bow from somewhere on her back – Shiekah magic, of course, Zelda’s rational brain supplied in the spaces where panic wasn’t roosting – and nocked an arrow.

The Yiga danced into the sunlight. Epona kept backing up, backing up, until his rear legs were pressing firmly into the rotted wood of the eastern bridge. The water underneath misted Zelda’s legs.

“Yiga demon,” Paya called. “You are not welcome on this land. Leave us at once.”

Something echoed over the roar of the rapids. It was laughter.

“Fire,” Zelda said. She reached over her shoulder for her own bow when the Yiga archer pointed his arrows at her. She froze. “Paya. Fire.”

Paya’s fingers shook. She grit her teeth against the side of her fingers, arrow angled carefully in their attacker’s path.

“Oh, for crying out loud.”

The weight on Zelda’s shoulder’s vanished. The clearing erupted in smoke and purple flame. The sun vanished and with it went the heat; all at once, Zelda felt like they’d never retreated at all. The Dueling Peaks would be her grave.

The Yiga archer disappeared in a flash of light, and when it cleared, there stood Ghirahim. He had a sword drawn; it hung mid-air as though still lodged in the archer’s belly.

“Was that really so hard?” he said, scoffing, taking a rag out of his back pocket and running it along the sides of the blade despite there being nothing there to wipe away. “They’re simple pests. Are you really so incapable of defending yourselves?”

“I’ve never seen a Yiga before,” Paya breathed, deflating. The arrow fell out from between her fingertips; her bow went slack in her arms. “Not in broad daylight. And never so boldly.”

“And I’ve never dealt with them on my own before,” Zelda said, only recognizing her own voice when the other two looked at her. “Link would take care of them when they appeared for him, but me? They’ve never bothered me before.”

Ghirahim coughed into his rag and waved his sword away. It vanished; so too did the eerie clouds and the darkness. “Yes. Well, they are a mysterious group, aren’t they?”

Zelda narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps.”

Ghirahim looked at her.

“Or,” Zelda said, “perhaps they are after something. Not someone, some _thing_.”

Ghirahim rolled his eyes. “Come now, Zelda.”

“You took it, didn’t you?”

The snappy motion of his eyes was all the answer she needed.

“Took what?” Paya asked. She looked between the two of them, settling her curious gaze finally on Ghirahim, who looked thoroughly plucked in the bright sunlight. “Master Ghirahim?”

“We might need it,” he spat. He waved his hand in front of him and, as was the same with the sword, the Shiekah Slate appeared in his fingertips. “It’s worth the risk of Hylia intervening.”

“But I thought you said—”

“As long as we do not use the Slate to travel, we should be fine,” Ghirahim said, narrowing his eyes. He straightened his back and pushed out his chest, turning on a heel and walking back toward the cliffside. “Now then. Onwards!”

Zelda and Paya shared a look. “Well then,” Paya said. “That was interesting.”

“I have a feeling this entire adventure will be nothing but,” Zelda grumbled, forcing Epona back into the Dueling Peaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOD Ghirahim is so extra. What a mess. I love him so much. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! You guys are super cool. 😎
> 
>  
> 
> **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites) | [Discord](https://discord.gg/SmeDuHt)**


	5. Chapter 5

The journey through the marshes took longer than Zelda would have hoped, but that may have simply been due to her nerves and her nerves alone.

“I’m so sweaty,” Paya said, sighing, pulling her horse up beside Zelda’s and following her gaze to the path ahead. “My tunic is barely making a difference.”

“It’s a warm day,” Zelda agreed, murmuring more of out distraction than fear that someone would overhear. She winced in the sunlight and held a hand to her forehead, making out the sharp shadow of the Lanayru Sheikah Tower. “We’re close, however. The river that empties into this lake leads straight to the Zora Domain.”

“And isn’t that just the most exciting thought.” The weight on Zelda’s shoulders vanished, and she felt the sizzle-pop of latent energy from where Ghirahim appeared at her side. “The Zora! I haven’t seen a Zora in generations.”

Paya’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Ghirahim hummed. “Yes, well, when you’re trapped in a stone statue for all eternity it _does_ make it difficult to get out and about. Hylia doesn’t provide vacation days, as it would happen.”

They kept moving.

The sharp mountain passes and wet, shadowy pathways kept the horses on their proverbial toes, and as they rounded the corner toward the final bridge, skin slick with moisture and lunges singed from humidity, the massive, hulking figure of the Zora dominion became a welcome respite, not a fear.

“Now I see why they had such trouble with trade,” Paya said, wiping her brow with one hand and re-wiping it with the other a moment later.

“That could have also been the Lizalfos,” Zelda murmured.

“And yet I saw not one on the way here,” Ghirahim said from within the (no doubt comfortable) confines of the sword on Zelda’s back. “It would seem that Ganon’s influence over this plane his finally receded. Not that it matters much anyway; just give it a few more thousand years.”

Zelda chose to ignore him. The bridge across the valley toward the Zora Domain was long, and it waved in the heat like a mirage.

They left the horses and continued on foot, boots carving dry prints into the waterfall-soaked terrace. The shadows of the Zora Domain swallowed them whole and dipped them into cool, comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of their breathing and the quiet splash of each heavy footstep.

“What should I do, Princess?” Paya asked, falling in behind her. Zelda felt the eyes of the Zora guards on her as they moved, but she kept moving regardless. “I feel tremendously out of place.”

“Have you ever met the Zora before, Paya?” Zelda asked.

“Not in their own domain, no.”

“Well, I can tell you with utmost certainty that there isn’t much more to it than that,” Zelda said. “They are a kind and peaceful people. They mean us no harm, just as we mean them none in kind.”

“And yet we’re here on a mission of desecration,” Ghirahim said quietly in her ear. “Did you think about that? What might come of such an act?”

“As you said,” Zelda grumbled, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let’s focus on the one we’re standing on.”

* * *

 

The first thing Zelda noticed was the statue of Mipha standing resolute over the grand plaza.

She passed the curious Zora children, passed the Zora guards that broke off from their posts and followed them inside once they’d made it through the large, luminescent gate at the end of the bridge. She stopped only when her feet were half-submerged in the water of a decorative pool and only when Mipha’s statue cut a sharp silhouette into the heat of the sun.

She looked ethereal, lit from above like a blessing from heaven, brandishing a trident that was twice as long as she was but looking no less capable of wielding it.

Zelda stopped at Mipha’s feet and everything – their plan, their mission, the fact Link was missing at all – faded away under the crushing guilt of Mipha’s absence.

She heard whispers from the fringes of the courtyards, from the inn to the general store to the growing crowd behind them. They all asked the same question, hidden in hushed tongues.

Zelda didn’t bother to answer.

The sunlight above dipped, and Zelda flinched, thrown from her trance. She saw a flicker of red, then a glimmer of steel and a flash of white. Her heart somersaulted against her chest and she took a step back.

He looked like her, that was certain. They had the same markings. Standing on the staircase to her right and framed by the grip of Mipha’s trident, her brother was every inch as royal.

“Zelda?” he asked, pausing mid-step, gripping the railing and leaning forward. “Zelda!”

The last time she’d seen him, he was barely large enough to hold himself upright. Now, as he descended the steps in an urgent-yet-dignified manner Zelda was all too familiar with, she realized he had grown much in the prior one hundred years.

“You’ve gotten big,” Zelda said dumbly.

“You’ve stayed the same,” Sidon said, mouth full of white, shiny teeth. The medallions on his shoulders chimed. “Is it really you?”

“The one and only,” Zelda said, returning his smile with something far less intense. She looked around at the crowd gathered around them and remembered Paya, poor Paya, who had attached herself to the tapered edges of Zelda’s cloak with white-knuckled fists and was doing her best not to evaporate into the water beneath them.

Sidon’s smile tightened. He gestured at the staircase with the sweep of his arm. “Perhaps…?”

“Yes, please, if you don’t mind,” Zelda said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and inching toward the stairs. Paya followed close on her heels.

“Princess, if I might ask,” Sidon started, leaning down to look at her eye-to-eye once they were far enough away that the others couldn’t hear. “Where is Link?”

Zelda’s stomach churned. “That is what I am here to speak to the King about,” she said.

“I’m certain my father would like to speak with you privately, in that case,” Sidon said quietly.

Zelda smiled, but she was certain it didn’t meet her eyes. “To be entirely honest, Prince Sidon, I would feel far better if you were there, too. What I have to say concerns you just as much as the rest of us.”

Sidon nodded. “Of course.”

They reached the terrace above the courtyard and Sidon broke off to inform his father of their arrival. As he ascended the stairs toward the King’s chambers, Zelda did her best to ignore the presence of the statue of Hylia, gently illuminated by the midday sun.

“Just ignore it,” Ghirahim said from her back. “She’s not watching.”

“Are you sure?” Zelda muttered.

“I’ll know when she’s meddling,” he said. “We’re safe for now.”

“Regardless, I would still very much appreciate it if we could move forward and not stand here for much longer than is necessary.”

As if on cue, Sidon’s red face appeared in the doorway above. He waved them forward.

“Are we really going to meet the King of the Zora?” Paya asked, taking a step back. “What do I do? Should I bow? Am I even allowed to speak?”

“Don’t worry,” Zelda said. “Just follow my lead. Dorephan is an old friend.” She looked at her. “Besides, you forget who you’re travelling with.”

Paya nodded and pursed her lips, straightening her tunic and fussing with the pins in her hair.

“What about me?” Ghirahim asked. He had the nerve to sound petulant about it. “No lessons on royal etiquette for the literal demon in your midst?”

Zelda’s attention flashed to the statue. It could have just been the light, but Zelda felt like the beady stone eyes were following her, _watching_ her. “I trust you’ll behave,” Zelda said quietly, turning her attention back to Sidon and priming her most cordial smile.

“That might not be wise,” Ghirahim said in a sing-song voice. “I tend to get antsy about things like this.”

“You’ve been in this situation before?”

“Well, they say that history rhymes with itself, don’t they?”

Paya and Zelda shared a look.

One hundred years or not, King Dorephan looked exactly the same as Zelda had remembered him – larger than life, happier than otherwise, and a pleasant face amidst a sea of bureaucracy. As they approached, she could count new scars and even newer wrinkles, carved into a face that had seen all too much.

There was the low roar of conversation, humming between the walls and hanging in the rafters in an echoed, unintelligible mess. A mob of properly-dressed Zora representatives were circled around Dorephan’s chair at the center of the room, and each of them seemed to be vying for a chance to whittle away at his patience.

Sidon stepped forward and cleared his throat. All eyes shifted – first to Sidon, then to Zelda.

“Your Majesty, the Queen Regnant of Hyrule,” he said, stepping to the side.

 _Queen Regnant_. Zelda shivered. She took a step forward, mouth opening in anticipation for a pre-scripted speech she’d been practicing in the back of her head since they’d left Hateno, but all she could muster was a weak, “Queen Regnant?”

“Zelda?” Dorephan said, voice booming across the room. His grin was no less impressive than his son’s. “What a pleasant surprise! Come, come! Sit. Please. We were discussing very little of merit regardless.”

The other Zora in the room scowled in unison. It would have been borderline creepy, if Zelda wasn’t already far too familiar with it from observing her father’s court. But that was another life, and the stares she felt as she accepted Dorephan’s offer and took a seat at his side were no less unsettling.

“Oh, and who is this?” Dorephan asked, pointing. Paya stood in the doorway, unmoved, hands gripping the front of her tunic.

“She is my escort,” Zelda said. She pointed at the chair next to her. “Paya, please come here?”

Paya gave a hasty nod – or was it a bow? – and shuffled over, taking great care to situate herself against her chair in as small a shape as possible.

Dorephan smiled and clasped his hands in front of him. “Now, the rest of you – please adjourn for the evening. We will reconvene at my next earliest convenience.”

One Zora, a tiger shark Zelda didn’t recognize, stood from his seat in an explosive clamor. “But sire—”

“Now, please,” Dorephan said. He turned and pointed at Sidon. “You may stay as well, son. Unless the nature of your visit is something you would prefer to speak with me about in private?” he added, leaning down toward Zelda.

“No – I was actually hoping the Prince would be willing to join us,” she said, folding her hands in her lap.

“Interesting,” Dorephan said, chuckling. “Interesting indeed.”

They silently watched the Zora council disband, one by one, until it was only the four of them – the four of them and a sentient sword.

“Now,” Dorephan said, waiting until Sidon had seated himself across the table, “what matters bring you to the Zora Domain?”

“Other than to relieve my father of the stresses of domestic rule, of course,” Sidon said, laughing.

Dorephan snorted. “Please, my son – do not out me so immediately among old friends.”

Zelda forced a smile. “I do apologize if I have interrupted something important,” she said.

“Oh, nonsense. If the citizens of central Hyrule are anything like those of the Zora Domain, I’m certain you’re more than aware of what kind of nonsense I have to deal with,” Dorephan said. He harrumphed. “Politics.”

“What sorts of politics are you struggling with currently?” Zelda asked. “I only ask because I am planning a cross-country journey to assess the status of Hyrule so I have a better idea of what I’ve returned to, and there is a strong possibility that what you are encountering is not an isolated problem.”

“That would be a fair guess,” Dorephan said. “It’s the Lizalfos. Well, to be fair, it’s all of Calamity Ganon’s underlings. Now that he no longer influences them, they have reverted to their barbaric, unorganized ways. And they are moving back into territory that has been staked and claimed by the Zora.”

Zelda thinned her lips. “That explains why we did not encounter any feral enemies on our journey here. If they are returning to their homelands, or at the very least hiding from public view, I see how it could cause tensions within the Zora.”

“Believe it or not,” Sidon said, leaning his arms against the table, “our main issue isn’t the Lizalfos. It’s the Lynel at the top of the mountain.”

Zelda blinked. “There’s a Lynel at the top of the mountain?”

“Yes, and it’s caused us quite a bit of trouble over the past few years.” Sidon sat up straight. “As a matter of fact, Link was the one that dispatched of it most recently. Until Ganon’s wicked powers of resurrection brought it back, of course.”

“That? Resurrection?” Ghirahim grumbled from Zelda’s back. “Absurd.”

Zelda ignored him. “What ill will is it causing?”

“It’s a Lynel, which means it is very territorial,” Dorephan said, sighing. “It is also rather skilled with lightning magic – something that, as I’m sure you’re well aware, we Zora are not particularly suited against.”

“We have contractors looking to begin maintenance on the upper dams to the north of the Domain,” Sidon said. “And more contractors who wish to assess the region where the Lynel lives for additional water storage. With Death Mountain existing in a constant state of eruption for the better part of a century, it has wreaked havoc on the climate in this region, leaving us in periods of heavy drought more often than not.”

“It’s a rather pressing issue,” Dorephan said. He shook his head. “But that is none of your concern, thankfully, Princess. I’m sure you have your own to worry about.”

“That actually leads me into why I came today,” Zelda said. She licked her lips. “Dorephan, Link has gone missing.”

She didn’t miss the way Sidon stiffened across the table from her.

“Missing?” Dorephan asked. He chuckled. “Are you sure he hasn’t simply run off again? You know that boy more than most. He has always had tricky feet.”

“I don’t think so,” Zelda said. “Not this time.” She reached underneath the table and tapped the bottom of the sword sheath, holding her hand out. “Slate, please.”

Ghirahim materialized the Sheikah Slate in her palm with a quiet grumble – something she also ignored. “If he left, he would not have done so without this,” she said, and revealed the tablet.

Dorephan’s smile vanished. “Oh dear,” he said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Zelda said.

“Do you know where he might have gone?” Sidon asked, eyes wide.

Zelda and Paya shared another look. “Unfortunately,” Zelda said. “And I have a suspicion you aren’t going to like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of fell down a bit of a Queen research rabbithole for this chapter lmao
> 
> Sorry for the update delay! I'll admit that it was a weakness in plot planning that caused that, nothing else. I just need to do a better job of writing my story threads down.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!
> 
> **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites) | [Tumblr](https://endowrites.tumblr.com)**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!! <3 <3 <3
> 
> Check out some of my other work **[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/EndoplasmicPanda)!!**
> 
> **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/EndoWrites) | [Tumblr](https://endowrites.tumblr.com)**


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